Garth Brooks has sued his sexual assault accuser for damages and claimed she’s intentionally inflicted “emotional distress”.
The country singer reportedly filed a lawsuit with the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Northern Division on Tuesday. According to Page Six, Brooks has named his accuser in the papers after previously attempting to keep both their identities private in an earlier court filing.
The 62-year-old star is believed to be seeking compensatory damages as a result of the defendant’s “intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and false light invasion of privacy, including incidental and consequential damages”.
He has also requested punitive damages “in an amount sufficient to deter similar future behaviour”.
The woman who has accused Brooks of rape, known as “Jane Roe” in previous legal papers, worked as a hair and make-up artist for him for 15 years.
Roe claims she attended the star’s house in 2019 for a styling appointment, when she found Brooks emerging from the shower with an erection and he forced her to touch his penis. She claims she was raped by him later that year.
In the new filing, Brooks insisted no amount of monetary damages could compensate for the damage done to his reputation following the allegations made against him.
“Defendant will suffer no hardship from an injunction of her wrongful conduct, while Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm if no injunction is issued,” the document reads.
Brooks is believed to have revealed the name of his accuser in the latest filing after she allegedly leaked his name.
In the new filing the singer also claims his accuser sent him a letter in July in which she threatened to go public with her complaint unless he paid her “millions of dollars not to file the suit”. In a subsequent letter reportedly sent in August, the accuser allegedly told Brooks she “would refrain from filing her false and defamatory lawsuit against Plaintiff in exchange for a multi-million dollar payment.”
Brooks, who is married to country singer Trisha Yearwood, has insisted the accuser’s allegations “are not true” and is requesting a “declaratory judgement” clearing him of sexual misconduct.
